


"What Will I Do When There's Nothing Left?"    Afterword to 'Childhood's End'

by DixieDale



Category: Clan O'Donnell - Fandom, Garrison's Gorillas
Genre: Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 23:25:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15084047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DixieDale/pseuds/DixieDale
Summary: In the story 'Childhood's End', Goniff asks himself a very hard question, a question for which he had no answer, but desperately needs one in order to allow himself to go on.  Now, in the aftermath, he goes to the one person who just might have that answer.  "What will I do when my Humanity is gone, when there is nothing left?"





	"What Will I Do When There's Nothing Left?"    Afterword to 'Childhood's End'

**Author's Note:**

> Wartime years, certainly after 'Through A Mist Blindly', though it could have happened at many different spots in the timeline after that.

He'd come down from the Mansion at Actor's urgings, though he'd waited out the night with them in the Dorm, each of them listening to the others' breathing, none of them really sleeping, thinking of Gerta, her father, of that conversation between Richards and Garrison. She'd known something was badly wrong by the look in his eyes, that slightly lost look he got when he started thinking too hard about who and what he was, comparing that to how he saw the others. 

She'd fed him, soothed him, loved him, ended up holding him in her arms as he slept, his ashen hair and skin still damp from their striving. She didn't sleep, however. She thought about his whispered, anguished words, how she could possibly answer them. She heard them again in her mind, after he recounted what had happened, that he could have killed the girl, without hesitation, once he knew what she intended, to kill Chief and the others. That Garrison, Chief, his other brothers-in-spirit, they could not have, and what that said about him, about them.

"What 'appens, 'Gaida, when I don't get back in time? When you can't find it, whatever is left of it, anymore? What do I do, when my 'umanity just isn't there anymore?" She ached, hearing the pain and fear in his voice, knowing there was an answer, were many different answers to that query. If he had been anyone else, if she had been anyone else, it would perhaps have been easier. Then, she could have told him all the sweet, comforting lies that came so quickly to the mind and tongue. 

She could have said, briskly, "don't be foolish! That's never going to happen!" She could have told him, "why, I'll always to able to make it right; you know that. Stop worrying about it!" She could even have told him, "you're being silly. Your humanity is just as strong, fills you just as completely as any of the others. I don't know where you get these ideas sometimes!" Aye, she could have lied. 

But not to him, never to him. He was her Treasure, her Ashtore; you did not lie to such as him. 

But the truth? That was something difficult to put into words, words he might understand and accept, words that offered honesty, but might in some way offer some comfort, some reassurance as well. That "Yes, your humanity shares space with your Other part, so it does not fill you completely as your team mates' does them. That does not make YOU less." Or another truth, "sometimes one part passes in front of the other, like an eclipse of the sun or moon; sometimes one truly IS more in command. That is neither good nor bad; it simply IS." 

How to explain that, even with the two parts sharing space within him, his humanity was stronger than many, oh so many others who had no such sharing. Well, didn't she encounter those almost daily? Could anyone see what was going on around them and NOT understand that? There were those here in the village, many she passed in the hallways in London, never mind those she knew of elsewhere, who possessed less humanity than he did, by far. 

And another truth, an uneasy one - that, yes, there had been those with a similar dual nature where the Other DID take control, the humanity fading, eventually to disappear, if not completely, then greatly. That sometimes that meant the Other remained, inside, with the outside changing to match that, whether that Change had ever manifested before or not, so what remained was beast within and beast without. That sometimes, the Other remained, inside, and the outside remained as before, so that others, the Outlanders, would see one they considered truly mad, an animal in human flesh. 

Along with the hard truth, "and I know of nothing I can do to reverse that, should it occur." 

And, a multitude of other truths, though which was more important than the others she did not try to say; perhaps they were equally so. Truths - "I will never abandon you, never desert you." "I will never allow you to harm those you consider family, brothers-in-spirit; never allow you to harm any Innocents." "Should that time come, there are places, places like Logan's castle in the high cliffs, other places where we would be welcomed, to make our lives as fate allows us, in whichever form fate has determined." 

And perhaps the ultimate truth, the one he was looking for as much if not more than the rest, "and should you no longer be able to bear your existence, then I will sing you to sleep and gather you in my arms and together we will Fly, perhaps into the sun, perhaps into the sea or the deepest of the mountain crevasse, there to walk The Long Road together." Yes, somehow she thought that was the ultimate comfort he was asking of her, the ultimate faith he was placing in her hands, that she loved him enough to offer him that. 

Later, when he awoke, then would they sit and speak of Truths. For now, this was Truth as well, and so she held him, watching him sleep, feeling his skin against hers, breathing in his scent, touching the pulse in his temple under her lips. Here also was Truth.


End file.
